Keywords: trade friction; Protective trade policy; Comprehensive competitiveness
First, why does the United States frequently attack China's textile exports?
(A) Foreign factors that lead to textile trade friction
First, the United States used sanctions against China's textiles to ease the trade deficit and unemployment pressure. For a long time, the huge trade deficit with China has made many American political forces and interest groups quite dissatisfied. They claim that the huge trade deficit between China and the United States harms the interests of the United States, so we should set restrictions on our products exported to the United States. China's exports to the United States are mainly labor-intensive light industrial products, so when the United States adopts protective trade policies on the grounds of narrowing the trade deficit, textiles, which are the focus of China's exports, naturally bear the brunt. On June 65438+1 October1day, 2005, after the global textile quota system was abolished, China's textile exports to the United States increased significantly. However, the United States believes that the influx of low-priced imported textiles into the American market has caused the unemployment of American industrial workers. Although it has been proved that there is no direct connection between the unemployment rate and the trade deficit in the United States, the United States government claims that it is necessary to adopt a boycott policy against imported textiles from developing countries in order to be fair. Therefore, as a major importer of American textiles, China's imported textiles have become a "scapegoat" for the unemployment problem in the United States.
Second, the United States wantonly abused the special safeguard clauses and non-market economy clauses under the WTO system. According to China's commitment in the Protocol on China's Accession to the WTO and the Report on China's Accession to the WTO, if WTO members determine that textiles originating in China are disturbed, threatened and hindered by the market, they can restrict China's textile exports on the premise that negotiations with China fail. However, the relevant documents do not clearly stipulate the standards of "market disturbance" and "threatening and hindering the orderly development of related products".
With regard to the determination of anti-dumping and countervailing, according to the provisions of WTO's non-market economy clauses, the defined prices of anti-dumping and countervailing of export products from non-market economy countries are lower than those from market economy countries, which means that from the expiration of the special safeguard clause in 2008 to the expiration of the validity period of China's "non-market economy countries" in 20 16, anti-dumping and countervailing will become the main measures for the United States to restrict China's textile imports.
(B) Sino-US textile trade friction exposed the disadvantages of China's export textile industry.
First, the homogenization of export textiles is serious, and the unit foreign exchange earning is low. Over the years, China's export textiles are mainly middle and low-grade products, and it is inevitable to take the road of low-price competition in the international market, thus giving the importing countries an opportunity for trade protection policies. The narrow product range and single marketing path make China's textile export encounter sanctions, which often involve huge amount and heavy losses.
In addition, like other export labor-intensive products in China, China's export textiles also have the common problems of low technical added value and brand value. Most of the exported textiles are produced by foreign brands with OEM and fixed brands, which can only earn less than 10% of the processing fee, while the self-exported products are of poor quality and low grade. Although the export volume is large, the value is low and the foreign exchange earned is small.
Second, China's so-called "non-market economy status" is one of the important factors that lead to the frequent special safeguard investigations on China's textile exports. The "non-market economy clause" in China's WTO accession protocol has become a powerful handle for importers to impose sanctions on China's textiles. Therefore, the establishment of China's market economy status will be of great significance to solving Sino-US textile trade disputes and even trade frictions with other importing countries, which is also an arduous task for our government's diplomatic work.
Third, export textile industry associations lack the ability to regulate and control. China Textile Industry Association is duty-bound in frequent export special protection and anti-dumping investigations to the United States. The growth of textile export volume is out of control, the export price is unbalanced, and there is a lack of relevant early warning information before trade risks. All these more or less reflect the incomplete function of China's textile industry associations. Compared with the trade associations in western developed countries, China's trade associations started late and the mechanism is not perfect. The most typical thing is that the dual management system of China's trade associations, that is, the so-called "semi-official and semi-private", makes their social functions unclear, and China lacks laws and regulations corresponding to the functions and powers of trade associations, which all lead to the limited scope of activities of China's textile industry associations, lack of execution, and inability to achieve effective macro-coordination for export textile enterprises. Second, how does China's textile export face a new round of challenges?
First, fundamentally change the mode of growth, from quantitative advantage to winning by quality. In order to gain a foothold in the international market, the key for China's export textiles lies in "quality" rather than quantity, that is, improving the quality and brand value of export textiles, increasing the proportion of high-end products in export textiles, thus increasing the unit export profit of export products and making various protective trade policies impossible to start with. In view of the large proportion of China's export textile OEM production, the low value and small quantity of domestic brands, government departments and trade associations should make great determination and make great efforts to fundamentally adjust the industrial structure of China's textile export, and start to rectify the industrial structure from two aspects of production and pricing. Implement uniform and strict quality standards in the production of export textiles, especially in terms of safety and hygiene standards, and establish a sound supervision system; In terms of pricing, it is necessary to straighten out the current price system of low-price competition, maintain the price of export products at a high level through the introduction of relevant minimum wage system, labor insurance system and tax system, form a "cartel" with highly unified pricing strategy in the textile industry, resolutely put an end to the "personal behavior" of individual enterprises in pursuing short-term interests in trade, and ensure the long-term maximization of the interests of all enterprises. Brand strategy is the only way for China textile industry to gain a foothold in overseas markets. China should support a number of independent famous brand enterprises in textile enterprises through technical and financial support, establish a stable market position in importing countries through excellent quality, high-end pricing and a series of perfect marketing networks, and reverse the image of China textiles in the international market.
Second, be prepared to deal with anti-dumping and countervailing. However, with the expiration of the special safeguard clause in 2008, anti-dumping will become a sharp weapon for many importing countries, especially the United States, to restrict China's textile imports, and with the gradual recognition of China's market economy status, countervailing investigations against China's textile exports are likely to increase. Facing the possible wave of textile anti-dumping, besides rectifying the price system of export textile industry, the property right system of textile enterprises also needs to be further straightened out. According to the anti-dumping laws in Europe and America, the definition of dumping depends on the role played by a government in resource allocation and pricing. Unclear property rights is a common problem of many state-owned enterprises in China, so many large state-owned textile enterprises must speed up the pace of shareholding system reform, effectively cut off the relationship between government and enterprises in property rights on the premise of rationalizing the property rights system of state-owned enterprises, and lay a good foundation for responding to anti-dumping. Compared with anti-dumping, China's textile enterprises seem to be more unfamiliar with countervailing, and the talents to deal with countervailing are also quite scarce, and the relevant legislation is not perfect. Therefore, it is imperative to popularize the laws and regulations on subsidies and countervailing in the textile industry under the framework of WTO, train a group of our own countervailing responding talents as soon as possible, get familiar with and adapt to the international countervailing responding rules as soon as possible, and make full preparations for anti-dumping responding.
Third, change from single export trade to global management. Under the tide of economic globalization, the proportion of regional trade agreements in the world trade system has increased dramatically. According to statistics, preferential trade under free trade agreements has accounted for more than half of the total trade in 2005, and bilateral trade agreements across regions are also increasing, which has had a far-reaching impact on textile trade. Regional trade integration is unfavorable to China, which has a global competitive advantage in textile trade. The internal trade of regional trade organizations will have a huge trade diversion effect on China's textile exports in these areas. Therefore, in the trade with these countries and regions, we should replace the single export trade with cooperative trade, bypass the regional trade barriers through overseas production and processing trade, and increase the trade volume of these regions by taking advantage of their domestic trade preferential arrangements.
Third, the conclusion
After China's textile export has gone through a thorny road, we see more and more clearly that it is difficult to remain invincible in the international market only by relying on low prices and mass sales. The key to textile trade competition is not who owns low-cost labor, but proprietary technology, high-quality and high-grade products, perfect marketing network and good reputation and service in production. In addition, under the tide of global economic integration and regional trade collectivization, it is increasingly difficult to occupy overseas markets only by domestic production and export. In order to avoid trade barriers to the maximum extent, reduce costs and earn profits, we must participate in international division of labor and cooperation in various fields with the concept of "big market", which is the embodiment of comprehensive competitiveness in international trade in the new era. The Sino-US textile trade dispute exposed the weakness of China's textile export, which made us realize that it is the only way and the key to improve the comprehensive competitiveness of the export textile industry if we want to become a rock-solid trading power in the international textile market.
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